Strong quake hits Haiti, sends people into streets

Washington Post.com
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 20, 2010; 6:27 AM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- A strong earthquake has hit Haiti, shaking buildings and sending people running into the streets.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the preliminary 6.0 magnitude quake hit at 6:03 a.m. (1103 GMT) Wednesday about 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

It says the quake struck at a depth of 13.7 miles (22 kilometers).

AP reporters in the Haitian capital say the temblor sent scores of people fleeing into the streets.

The pacific tsunami warning center said the earthquake was located too far inland to generate any tidal waves in the Caribbean.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A strong earthquake has hit Haiti, shaking buildings and sending people running into the streets.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the preliminary 6.0 magnitude quake hit at 6:03 a.m. (1103 GMT) Wednesday about 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

It says the quake struck at a depth of 13.7 miles (22 kilometers).

AP reporters in the Haitian capital say the temblor sent scores of people fleeing into the streets.

New IDF Delegation to Depart to Haiti Monday

Arutz Shevia by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Published: 01/18/10, 6:40 PM / Last Update: 01/18/10, 6:36 PM

(IsraelNN.com) An additional IDF rescue and medical aid team is scheduled to depart to Haiti Monday night and will include Home Front Command Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, Director General of the Ministry of Health Dr. Eytan Chai-Am, and Surgeon General, Brig. Gen. Nachman Ash.

The delegation will deliver relief reinforcements that include medicine and additional equipment and will examine the needs of the IDF medical staff on the scene.

Photo: Dr. Ashton and Col. Kryce Dr. Jennifer Lee Ashton, an American doctor working at a United Nations medical facility, is coordinating efforts with the Home Front Command and met on Sunday with IDF Field Hospital Commander, Col. Itzik Kryce. The field hospital established by the IDF is one of the most advanced and includes a medical lab, pharmacy and an x-ray center. Twenty-five life-saving surgeries and three births, one of which was the delivery of a 1.8kilogram (4-pound) premature baby, have been carried out.

Nine American volunteers from Los Angeles joined the Israeli delegation in the field hospital on Monday in addition to the ongoing cooperation with United Nations forces and other search and rescue units in the disaster zone.

Two rescue crews led by the commanders of the Home Front Command Search and Rescue Unit are also operating in the disaster-stricken area in cooperation with local residents

Huckabee Praises US Aid to Haiti, World Ignores Israel's

ArutzSheva
by Hillel Fendel
Published: 01/18/10, 11:12 AM / Last Update: 01/18/10, 11:35 AM

(IsraelNN.com) Mike Huckabee, past and likely future candidate for president of the United States, has praised American efforts in and for Haiti, and lashed out at critics and enemies of the United States who stand by and do nothing. The former Arkansas governor's remarks brought out in bold relief how Israel’s disproportionate aid to Haiti is ignored by the world.

Speaking on his FoxNews television program, Huckabee noted that “once again, in the face of a horrible human tragedy, it’s Americans who show up first, do the most, and expect the least in return.When it comes to a time of human tragedy,” Huckabee continued, “it’s the United States that will export its most precious commodity – its generosity. Within hours of the horrific earthquake that hit Haiti, Americans were pouring record donations into the relief efforts… The U.S. military dispatched ships, planes and thousands of personnel… American relief workers lined up to go to Haiti and risked death and disease to help people they don’t even know.”

“I realize that other countries are helping and providing resources – but the next time some pipsqueak punk politician like [Venezuelan dictator] Hugo Chavez or Iran’s nutjob of a president Ahmoud Medinajad [sic] whines about how evil we are, we ought to tell them to put up or shut up.”

“… When the earthquake struck, American went to Haiti. As for our critics, they can go to hell.”

As for Israel’s relief efforts to Haiti, they include the following:

• A field hospital, the only hospital in operation, with 40 doctors, 25 nurses, paramedics, a pharmacy, a children's ward, a radiology department, an intensive care unit, an emergency room, two operating rooms, a surgical department, an internal department and a maternity ward. The hospital can treat approximately 500 patients each day, and in addition will perform preliminary surgeries.
• A search-and-rescue team, which has rescued about five people from under the rubble.
• 220 personnel in total
• Dozens of truckloads of medical and logistical equipment

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, one of the richest countries in the world, has sent a message of condolence to Haitian President René Préval. Some Arab countries have “pledged” help, such as $1 million pledged from both Kuwait and Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates says it will “shortly” send a plane with humanitarian assistance. Qatar, with the third largest gas reserves and the second highest GDP per capita in the world, has dispatched 50 metric tons of aid to the hundreds of thousands of homeless and injured Haitians.

Latest reports are that the IDF Medical Corps have treated some 200 injured people in Haiti, performed ten life-saving surgeries and saved the lives of 140 others. On Sunday night, a resident of Port-au-Prince gave birth to a boy at the Israeli field hospital. In appreciation and gratitude, his mother decided to name her new son “Israel” in honor of the country that helped her.

See video of new Haitian baby "Israel" and of IDF Rescue of Man in Haiti

The director of the Haiti field hospital, Col. Dr. Itzik Reis, explained that the IDF delegation is also giving assistance "to people from emergency crews from all over the world, who simply are not capable of dealing with everyone who needs help and giving them treatment. For example, when we understood that the Dominican team is not set up to provide full treatment, we created an order by which they stabilize the patients and we give them the remainder of the treatment.”

Other Israeli relief operations in Haiti include:

• A six-man ZAKA rescue unit, which worked for 38 consecutive hours and succeeded in pulling eight students alive from the rubble of the collapsed university.
• IsraAID, which sent a planeload of food and medical equipment.
• "Latet" (To Give) – a 15-member mission to Haiti, including three physicians, three nurses, and three paramedics.

”

121-member IDF medical and rescue team saves Haitian government worker

JerusalemPost.com Jan 18, 2010 1:11 | Updated Jan 18, 2010 3:19
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH


Among the chaos and lack of law and order in Haiti since the earthquake that may have killed hundreds of thousands of people, the IDF medical and rescue team has seen a few points of light.

The IDF search-and-rescue team in Haiti extricates a local government official from the ruins of a building in Port-au-Prince, Sunday. Photo: IDF Spokesperson

Not long after their arrival in Port-au-Prince, the team members saved the life of a customs clerk who was trapped in his office for 125 hours by debris, and then treated him in the Israeli field hospital - by far the largest, most equipped and best organized in the country.

It was the 121-member IDF team's first rescue since its arrival and establishment of the field hospital on Shabbat. More than 100 survivors have been treated, with three in 10 in serious condition and 50 percent moderately injured. Children comprise more than half of the injured, most with limb injuries and bone fractures. Nearly a dozen lifesaving operations have been performed.

The field hospital, said its commander Col. Dr. Itzik Kreis, "is currently the most significant medical center in the area struck by the earthquake."

On Sunday morning, the parents of a baby born in the field hospital named him Israel. It was an ordinary delivery, and there are two more women about to deliver there.

Deputy hospital director Dr. Carmi Bar-Tal, a Beer Sheba physician in charge of triage and hospitalization who as a civilian works in Soroka University Medical Center's internal medicine department, told health reporters in a conference call: "The most serious patients - both wounded in the quake and sick - arrived from clinics run by the Americans, Russians and other groups who cannot handle these most serious cases."

Bar-Tal said the huge hospital operates in a well-guarded, fenced soccer stadium in the center of Port-au-Prince. There are open fractures, crush injuries and other orthopedic problems.

"Some limbs had to be amputated. There are battles in the streets over food and water, with people waiting outside. We opened a community clinic near the fence so patients who needed to be bandaged would not have to be admitted to the hospital," he said.

The deputy director said the hospital was completely full. "We discharge patients but don't know what awaits them afterwards. At least we gave them a chance to live. Some, such as a man paralyzed with a spinal injury, could not be admitted because doctors knew they could not help him."

The staff members are well taken care of and lack for nothing. They share the food brought in from Israel with patients and their relatives.

The Israeli rescuers have been well received by the Haitians. TV cameramen photographed survivors applauding and singing next to the IDF search and rescue team after they pulled someone out of a collapsed building. They were singing a refrain of "Good job, Israel."

At first they didn't know who we are. They thought Americans or Canadians. They were surprised to hear we are Israelis, but now they identify us. The most obvious thing is that they are very sad; You can see it in their eyes. They are not hysterical but resigned," said Bar-Tal.

Meanwhile, ZAKA - Israel's experts in extricating survivors and the dead - reported that its team members have been begged by desperate people to extricate their loved ones, after being dispatched to save people at one location and being unable to stop to give children water, because if they gave one bottle, they'd be surrounded and unable to go where most needed. They reported that the US forces have taken control and give ZAKA instructions on where to go, with an armed UN jeep as their escort.

Several Israeli medical centers are represented by doctors, nurses and other professionals in Haiti. One is Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek, which recently launched a major project to develop the Dr. Jack Matloff Family Disaster and Emergency Response Center. This project will create a comprehensive emergency preparedness and disaster management center and is designed to serve as an urgent care facility for mass casualty incidents and an training center for medical professionals and first-aid responders.

"The fact that four of our senior medical professionals have been chosen for this mission in Haiti is an important indicator of the central role played by Shaare Zedek in the realm of emergency management," said hospital director-general Prof. Jonathan Halevy. "We wish them all the greatest of success in this mission and look forward to their safe return as soon as possible."

Magen David Adom coordinator Dudi Abadi said that the earthquake appears to be one of the largest humanitarian crisis in history. The organization's paramedics left immediately to cooperate with the Federation of the International Red Cross. They arrived via the neighboring Dominican Republic and joined the Norwegian Red Cross team that will set up an additional field hospital.

Life amid death: Baby born in Israeli field hospital in Haiti

Haaretz.com
By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent

Amid the tragedy and devastation encompassing the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince since Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake, a happy event took place Sunday inside the field hospital erected by the Israeli relief delegation in the city. Doctor Shir, who works at Hadassah, delivered the first healthy baby in the Israeli hospital.

The mother told Dr. Shir that she would name her son Israel. "Amid all the death around us," the doctor said, "it is very symbolic." He added that childbirth in Haiti doesn't usually take place in a hospital in the impoverished country, and that this particular woman received the best care from the best doctors.

"She was very quiet," he said. "At first it wasn't even clear that she was in labor."

"It is very exciting," the doctor continued. "It offers some small balance to the things that are happening. Life is stronger, after all, and a woman will give birth even if the ground is shaking. This is what maintains the human race. This country has a very high infant mortality rate, and we delivered this healthy baby."

To the nightmare of Haiti, the Americans are coming

CanadaFreePress.com
By Judi McLeod Wednesday, January 13, 2010


In the nightmare of Haiti, Americans were first to respond just as Americans have always responded, recession-bound or not.

This is the giving spirit of America in action. Not waiting for anyone else, just doing what is necessary to help, without boasts, without expecting anything back. Simply America.

America has always been there for others and always will be.

Even a falling-in-the-polls President Obama whose conduct since election has been to belittle the spirit of America and its people is cashing in today on that generosity, promising to a shocked and grief stricken people his “unwavering support” and a “swift and coordinated effort”.

Beleaguered Americans losing their homes and jobs will rush in to help Haitians with food, temporary shelters; emergency service of every kind.

The American military, a welcome sight the world over even though politicians try to state otherwise, will be there for the people beginning with rescue and recovery efforts, remaining to build water purification facilities, repairing infrastructure and rebuilding.

In consideration of how America rushes to the side of the world’s most disadvantaged nations when hit by sudden disaster, it is difficult to comprehend how its leader can spread a message worldwide about an America so bad it needs overhauling.

Even in the worst recession since the 1930s, America is leading the rescue and aid efforts in ravaged Haiti.

And this is happening just weeks after an attempted terrorist strike over Detroit and in a chapter of America where disturbing incidents continue on international air flights.

America rushing to the rescue in all corners of the world is as old as the Constitution.

The late Canadian broadcaster Gordon Sinclair wrote back in 1973,

“As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and t he Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

“They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water, and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

“When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

“When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help…Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

“The Marshall Plan…the Truman Policy—all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.”

The words of Gordon Sinclair, long gone, are as meaningful today as they were when he wrote them back in 1973.

When God created the indomitable human spirit, he showcased it in a country called America.

A country is its people and not its politicians.

Every penny in aid comes not from the American government but from the American people whose taxes make it possible for their government to operate.

Every ounce of energy in digging people from rubble, from rebuilding where only debris remains, comes not from chauffeur-driven, set-for-life-financially politicians but from the little people who till the fields and run the shops.

God bless Americans who, even in the middle of a recession, and even being forced into a Socialism they do not want, still respond with heart to an impoverished country where the worst has just happened!

Pictures from the Earthquake

Judi McLeod Most recent columns

Copyright © Canada Free Press
Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and Glenn Beck.

Judi can be emailed at: judi@canadafreepress.com

150 U.N. staff members remain trapped under rubble in Haiti

By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 14, 2010

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations appears to have suffered its greatest loss of life in a single incident as about 150 of its employees in Haiti, including the mission's leader, remained trapped Wednesday under the rubble of their headquarters and other U.N. facilities after Tuesday's massive earthquake.

As rescue crews dug through the wreckage of the Christopher Hotel, which houses the mission's headquarters in Port-au-Prince, the world body confirmed the deaths of 16 officials, including 13 Brazilian and Jordanian peacekeepers. However, it said it expected that most of those still missing would not survive.

"It's clear a high number of them might be dead," said Alain Le Roy, the top U.N. peacekeeping official.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his top advisers said the Haitian earthquake would probably mark the worst day in the organization's 64-year history. They said the death toll was likely to exceed the 44 Ghanaian peacekeepers killed in Congo in 1961, as well as the 22 officials and guests who perished in a suicide bombing at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003.

"This is a very difficult moment for all of us," said Susana Malcorra, the head of U.N. field operations. Malcorra said she had been taking calls throughout Wednesday from relatives of the missing. "It's not an easy conversation," she said.

The crisis cast a pall over the U.N. headquarters, where staff members sought information about friends, some breaking down in tears. Hundreds of other staff members from around the world volunteered to travel to Haiti to help the survivors, Le Roy said. Edmond Mulet, a Guatemalan who had previously led the Haiti mission, was sent back to Port-au-Prince late Wednesday to take charge of the mission until the fate of his successor, Hédi Annabi, could be determined.

After trying all day, U.N. media officials finally located Michèle Montas, a former spokeswoman for the organization, who had returned to Haiti after her recent retirement. In an e-mail, Montas said that she was unhurt but that 80 percent of the city was destroyed. "I saw hundreds of bodies in the street this morning," she wrote.

Also Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, visited the New York headquarters, where he met with Ban and urged General Assembly members to contribute money to help rebuild the island nation.

Helen Clark, head of the U.N. Development Program, said 38 of her staff members are missing.

"About 10 were in an adjacent building to our main building, and that adjacent building collapsed," she said.

Homes Toppled, Bodies Piled in Streets After Devastating Haiti Quake

Earthquake Rocks Haiti

The largest earthquake ever recorded in the area rocked Haiti, causing what officials described as "total disaster and chaos."

FoxNews.com
Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Jan. 13: Injured people sit along Delmas road the day after an earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The tiny bodies of children lay in piles next to the ruins of their collapsed school. People with faces covered by white dust and the blood of open wounds roamed the streets. Frantic doctors wrapped heads and stitched up sliced limbs in a hotel parking lot.

The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, still struggling to recover from the relentless strikes of four catastrophic storms in 2008, was a picture of heartbreaking devastation Wednesday after a magnitude-7 earthquake.

Tuesday's quake left a landscape of collapsed buildings — hospitals, schools, churches, ramshackle homes, even the gleaming national palace — the rubble sending up a white cloud that shrouded the entire capital.

On Wednesday, ambulances weaved in and out of crowds, swerving to miss the bodies lying in street and the men on foot who lugged stretchers bearing some of the injured.

Shocked survivors wandered about in a daze, some wailing the names of loved ones, praying or calling for help. Others with injuries fast growing into infections sat by the roadside, waiting for doctors who were not sure to come.

Search-and-rescue helicopters buzzed over the bodies of partially clothed victims who lay face-down in mounds of rubble and twisted steel.

Everywhere, there was panic, urgency, pleas for help.

"Thousands of people poured out into the streets, crying, carrying bloody bodies, looking for anyone who could help them," Bob Poff, divisional director of disaster services in Haiti for the Salvation Army, said in a posting on the agency's Web site

Poff wrote that he was driving down the mountain from Petionville, a hillside city bordering the capital, when the earthquake struck.

"Our truck was being tossed to and fro like a toy, and when it stopped, I looked out the windows to see buildings 'pancaking' down," he wrote.

Poff said he and others piled bodies into the back of his truck and took them down the hill, hoping to get them medical attention.

There was no reliable count, but officials feared thousands, maybe tens of thousands, had died in the quake. Some Haitian leaders suggested the figure could be higher than 100,000. In the chaos, doctors rushed to tend to the countless injured.

The parking lot of Port-au-Prince's Hotel Villa Creole became a triage center. Under tents fashioned from bloody sheets, dozens lay moaning from the pain of cuts in their heads, broken bones and crushed ribs.

"I can't take it any more. My back hurts too much," said Alex Georges, 28, who had lain on the parking lot's sloping blacktop for more than a day waiting for help. Just a few feet away lay the dead body of another man who appeared to be about his age.

When the quake struck just before 5 p.m. Tuesday, Georges he was in a meeting with about 30 other students at a school in the neighborhood of Morne Hercule. The roof fell in, he said, killing 11 of his classmates instantly and critically injuring him and others.

Several thousand Haitian police and international peacekeepers poured into the streets Wednesday to clear debris, direct traffic and maintain security. But there was only so much they could do: Looters prowled through shops, then blended into crowds of desperate refugees lugging salvaged possessions. The main prison in the capital fell, and there were reports of escaped inmates, U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva.

Haitians who could still walk were streaming out of the capital by the hundreds, many of them balancing suitcases and other belongings on their heads as they headed down one of the capital's main streets. Police shouted orders to keep traffic moving at congested intersections as ambulances and United Nations trucks raced toward downtown Port-au-Prince.

In Petionville, people used sledgehammers and their bare hands to excavate a collapsed commercial center, scampering across the rubble as they tossed aside mattresses and office supplies. More than a dozen cars and a U.N. truck were buried underneath.

Up the hill, about 200 victims, including many small children, huddled together in a theater parking lot and rigged tarps out of bed sheets to protect themselves from the scorching sun.

"The immediate need is to rescue people trapped in the rubble, then to get people food and water," Sophie Perez, Haiti director of the U.S.-based humanitarian organization CARE, told her colleagues in an e-mail.

"Everything is urgent."

.

Powerful Earthquake Rocks Haiti

The New York Times By LIZ ROBBINS

Published: January 12, 2010

A powerful earthquake of 7.0 magnitude rocked Haiti just before 5 p.m. Eastern time, 10 miles southwest from the highly populated capital of Port-au-Prince, according to the United States Geological Survey, causing widespread damage and panic with the potential for a high number of casualties in the impoverished Caribbean country.

There were two aftershocks — of 5.5 and 5.9 magnitude — that followed in the last hour, and more were expected, according to David Wald, a seismologist with the survey.

“The main issue here will probably be shaking,” Mr. Wald said, “and this is an area that is particularly vulnerable in terms of construction practice, and with a highly population density. There could be a high number of casualties.”

The city has about 2 million people, according to National Geographic.

According to several news reports, a large hospital in the capital had collapsed, and people were screaming in streets full of rubble.

Elsie St. Louis-Accilien, the director of the Haitian Americans United for Progress in Queens, N.Y., said that she was able to reach the director of Ofatma hospital, in Port-au-Prince. “They are trapped inside,” Ms. St. Louis-Accilien said in a telephone interview. “They were pretty shaken, but they were relieved to be alive.” She said that the director said that there was “a lot of smoke, a lot of dust,” and that her phone has been ringing nonstop. “People are calling me, elected officials are calling, asking what we can do.”

Haiti, by far the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, has been beset by natural disasters for most of its recent history. The island is struck by an annual series of hurricanes and is particularly vulnerable to storm-related disasters because much of its forests have been chopped down and used for fuel, leaving the country with very little tree cover. In one of its hardest hit years, 2004, Haiti was rocked by powerful Hurricane Jeanne, which caused untold destruction and killed 3,000 people.

Since 2008, the island has been struck by at least three severe hurricanes — Gustav, Hanna and Ike — that have wrought nearly a billion dollars worth of damage and killed 800 people. All of this has taken place against the backdrop of food riots, health crises and near constant government instability and upheavals.

Raymond Joseph, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, said in an interview on CNN that he had little information about the extent of damage but said the suffering inflicted on the was likely to be “catastrophic.”

Mr. Joseph said that the one official he had reached — identified by The Associated Press as President Rene Preval’s chief of staff, Fritz Longchamp — told him that houses had crumbled “on the right side of the street and the left side of the street.”

An Associated Press videographer saw the wrecked hospital in Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians. And a United States government official reported seeing houses that had tumbled into a ravine.

Delores Clark, a spokeswoman for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said that scientists were quickly conducting water level measurements and other analyses to determine whether the quake set off a tsunami in other parts of the Caribbean. As of 6 p.m. Eastern, they had not detected one, she said.

Because the fault that likely caused the earthquake is on land, rather than in the water, Mr. Wald said, there was less of a probability of a tsunami. But such an earthquake likely would mean more damage to the city and its surrounding areas, he added.

An earthquake of this magnitude has not hit the region in more than 250 years, according to Mr. Wald. Before Tuesday, the most powerful earthquake to hit the region was 6.7 magnitude, in 1984.

Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting from New York.